Ninth Circuit Reaffirms that Kidnapping is a Crime of Violence

In a federal criminal proceeding, the Ninth Circuit again affirmed that kidnapping under section 207(a) of the California Penal Code is a crime of violence. Although this is not a new revelation, there was some hope that the court's 2013 decision in Castrijon-Garcia v. Holder, which held that kidnapping was not categorically a crime involving moral turpitude, signaled a change in direction for evaluating the immigration consequences of this conviction. Notably, it does not appear that the petitioner in today's case argued that Castrijon-Garcia had any impact on the analysis, so this argument remains open for future cases.

The court also affirmed that an attorney's factual allegations can be used to sustain removability. In the instant case, the petitioner's former attorney conceded that a controlled substance conviction involved methamphetamine, thus relieving the government of any further burden to prove his removability for this conviction.

The full text of United States v. Zamudio can be found here: http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2015/01/14/13-10322.pdf